SHAKE IT LIKE IT'S FAKE

Running with the liars no one to put out the fire

They got in your ear now there is no one your can hear

Head like a cinder-block with booty to big for you

Shake it like it's fake

Think you have it all but no one wants to eat your cake

Shake it like it's fake

 

Look in the mirror don’t like what you see

Using tattoos like a clown’s makeup will not make you free

Just to hide those scars and lies for you it is the only way to hide

Shake it like it’s fake

When Clorox is too dark for you

Shake it like it's fake

Your getting to the party to late

Don’t like your face, your chest, your hair

Why should anyone care while you put things that don’t belong there

Now you don’t look the same that is a damn shame

Shake it like it’s fake

You think you got a new nose, plastic is meant for toys

Shake it like it's fake

Someone got in your ear

Now you can’t hear the truth

Just running around like a fool

Shake it like it’s fake

Saying things like they know selling off your soul
Shake it like it's fake

You say you make art but you have no heart

Speak before you think

You’re not as great as you perceive

Shake it like it’s fake

A few words used over and over don’t make a song

Shake it like it's fake

Fame from daddy's accomplishments

Giving it up to a jealous man

Naming your kids like directions on map

Shake it like it's fake

Even when Prince kicked you off the stage

Shake it like it's fake

Talent and creativity can’t be faked

When being fake is all you make

Shake it like it's fake

Shake it like it's fake

Shake it like it's fake

©Copyright Thomas Dooley 2016 

LEAH JOANNE

 

I was on the lonely road of life

Just watching time go by

But there you where wanting nothing more than the simple things

Nothing more that just to be seen then you found me   

Leah Joanne first woman to see me as I am

You took me in and let me be your man

What a match we make

I would make you laugh

You would make me nervous

Now together we will make this life serve us
 

Leah Joanne first woman to see me as I am

You took me in and let me be your man

Your feeling for me where hit or miss

Even after our first kiss

Pushing me to the side with all the feeling you hide

I told you I couldn't fake happiness

Advice from a friend you let me back in

Leah Joanne first woman to see me as I am

You took me in and let me be your man

I said I would make you love me

You smiled in disbelief

You took my promise for a ring

When I didn't have any thing

Now with you I have everything

Oh, Leah Joanne 

Oh, Leah Joanne

Oh, Leah Joanne

With you makes me a better man

©Copyright 2025 Thomas J. Dooley 

 

SEEN WITH ME

Had no love on the side living alone

No one there what would happen if I died tonight

Did she find me or did I find her in this lonely world 

Living a dream ever time she looks at me, not even asleep

Was the bar lowered for me, all she wanted was the simple things

She wanted no money

She wanted no expensive things

She just wanted a ring and to be seen with me

Not good enough for what I thought was the one

Just a man under glass, incase of emergency break the glass

That one never got the chance, loving friendship never last

Now I have what was the one passed, much more special than that

Did our path ever cross, where we the two ships in the dark

She wanted love from my heart

She wanted to feel kiss on the neck

She also wanted forever to be seen with me

A voice speaking the word glorious

Gave up a dream and traveled thousand miles just to see

Feeling I was needed until there was no need

Thinking all I needed was a Caribbean dream 

Did I give up on love or did it give up on me

She wanted me in her dream

She wanted to be in mine

She wanted to be at my side just to be seen with me

©Copyright 2025 Thomas J. Dooley 

NARCAN NIGHTMAIR

Waken from a deep sleep 

As she ran from the room like a nightmarish dream

Blonde hair dark skin what she did was a sin

Grey skin he didn't even breathe

What has happened to the sleep I've known

The entrance to a world that is all my own

A comfort that feels like home

Where do I go from here? 

With a mind full of fear

Is the end really near

Waken from the Narcan in his nose

Confused by the torn-up room

What has happened no-one knows

Regretable memory of the past 

The embarrassment will never last

Will there be another chance

Where do I go from here?

With eyes full of tears

Who is this in the mirror

©Thomas J. Dooley 2025

MENTALE DILUSION

What has happened over these past years

No one wants to face their fears crying with dry tears

Claiming biology and gender a mith

Who made up all this?

Mental delusion

Who are you fooling

What are you proving

I am who I am without any titles 

I am one man that is my community

I do not have the time or energy to be anything else

With all my inner flaws I keep them to myself  

Mental delusion

Cutting in the biological line

This is not the fight for equal rights

Who are you, are you human?

©Thomas J. Dooley 2024

CALL ME MASTER

Calling me boss 

    Does that make more of a man

Do I have a higher qualification than you?

Are you in my employ?

Why did you grant me such a status?

Are you calling me a boss

    Does that make you less of a person?

Is you three-fifth man?

Compromise with a pen in hand

Banneker letters caused him to have carpel tunnel

Why do you call me boss

    Do you need direction or can't make your own decisions

What is the purpose of a word that puts you in a lower class?

Is it a nice way to call me white trash?

My education and the status of my degree does not say that

Don't call me boss

    It sounds like your loss

That word was chosen to hide the domination of racism

It lurks within the context and tone 

If it was 400 years ago would you be calling me master.

Don't call me boss

Call me friend or call me brother

©Thomas J. Dooley 2024  

IN BELIZE

What is this, I feel? Something so different something so real

Always searching for that path for that plan

Feeling the warm air and the smell of a Caribbean sea.

I want to think of you as you think of me

I want to dream of you as you dream of me

I want to pack up my past and  pray these memories will last

Feel the innocent touch of your hand

Reminisce of the warm breeze in Belize

What is this feeling that has eluded me most of my life

Always looking for that inspiring guiding light 

Laying back to look at a clear blue sky

I want to look in your eye and see that same sky.

I want to feel that warm sun beaming around your silhouette.

I want to taste that sweet fruit and imagine it is a kiss from you.

See the night sky, the bright stars, nothing like the ones in your eyes.

Just like the night sky in Belize

Copyright © Thomas J. Dooley 2023

DARK PAGES

Complex stories are hidden in the past

Nearly forgotten in this journey of life

A pronoun shaved down to a one-letter acronym

When said, it is sharp as a knife

Dark pages of forgotten history

Taking offense through white tears

Dark pages of remembered history

Responsibility is hidden by unspoken fears

Praising a patriotic phrase only for political gain

Then become empty words spoken from a podium

But when spoken with passion on the streets

The evidence of true justice we all hope to see

Dark pages of common sense

A knock at the wrong door can lead to death

Dark pages of uncommon words

Uncommon thoughts lead to an uncommon world.

We march behind an acronym BLM just so as not to offend

But it should be shouted out loud BLACK LIVES MATTER

This banner proclaiming justice for one is proclaiming justice for all 

It does not matter who created this; what matters is that we all believe in it

Dark pages of thought

Original though lost in a social media post

Dark pages of education

No more will we hear the cracking sounds of opening a new book

The gentrification of our human existence with labels

With the cut of the scalpel, we can be anything

Stitched together, forget our original birth

No longer the same; your mother only knows you by a dead name.

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2022

HOW MANY

The times are changing the times are getting crazy

The vision of many are getting hazy

Believing the random thought of one's imagination

How many lies do we believe before we see the truth?

While many yell and screen looking like a fool

Karen, this does not have to be you.

Fallowing another man's lie 

But you pray to God every night

How are those things alike

How many times have you played Rushen Roulette with your life

It is better to feel sick for a day

Then it is to lay a week at death's doorstep

The chicken nuggets you eat are programmed to track you

While on the cell phone, you watch housewives acting like fools

As you use pronouns to offend so why do you pretend

How many have to die because of the selfishness you hide

You have no community pride living a patriot lie

Threat to kill because of your ignorance as you act all innocent 

The right to choose offends you now you want to change the rules.

©Cpoyright Thomas J Dooley

 

CAN I CALL YOU HUMAN

Let me call you by your name

Why do pronouns have to get in the way

Can I call you a friend?

Without you being offended

Can I look at you as human?

Instead of looking at you all confused

Trying to see the real you

Let me call you by your name.

We all have a human experience in different ways.

An acronym shouldn't make the rules of my friendship with you

Claiming a few decades of discrimination does not compare centuries of racial pain 

Can I see you as human?

As you segregate yourself in social places and parades 

Selective of the attention you want isn't the way

Let me call you by your name.

We might not think in different ways

If you don't like what I have to say 

We can both go our separate ways

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

MY SPACE

Within and without in a place to understand what is it all about

Who am I when under all the lies from your lips and from mine

Secluded to the hill, I climb to the top to find what is inside

My space outside is the distance of life; infinite distance is inside.

This maze of the mind, this maze of life held in the hands of time

Never knowing what is beyond the turns, I will find

The guru says many words of truth and many words of lies.

What we think we are and what we think we have become, we hide

Throughout the world, we search for what has always been inside

My space outside is the distance of life; infinite distance is inside.

In my baggage, I collect many things that I have gathered over time. 

Collecting things will not make me free I have to understand the truth of me.

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

 

  

EVERY THING BUT THE DREAM

The end has come; all that is left is stone and bones

Escaping death and pain in a nation built on hate

Rebuilding a new life, not knowing it will be taken away one day.

Pack up your clothing, pack up your photos and memories

Everything you think you will need

Everything but the dreams

Ike and Tina had a better relationship than the Taliban and Afghanistan

No one returning to Nutbush in that land, even if they can

Now controlled by men without any education or any soul

Pack up your pain, pack up your tears, and your fears

Everything, even a lifetime of deceit 

Everything but the dreams

A house and land, the building of a family, is the plan

So much to do so much to see the desire to be free

No one telling you it is a temporary thing

Pack up your religion, pack up your faith as you endlessly pray

Everything that helps you forget your sins

The ever-changing history of the word of God remains a mystery. 

The illusion is the inclusion of everyone going to a place you've never been

Everyone fights to be the president, as Prince rather be the Pope.

Looking for that formula that brings you some hope 

Pack up your peace, pack up your love and your purity 

Everything that the soul will ever need

Everything, and don't forget the new dreams

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

LOOKING AT YOU

Looking at you, you looking at me

Loving the summer; so free

With our feet in the waters of the Mediterranean sea

Got it now; you have to look at life, putting all your problems behind

In this mental darkness, you are wrong; got to get up, get out to be strong

Thinking in the sunlight, everything will be all right

Looking at you, you looking at me

Let us play together in the Chanhassen parks

Later, we can purify ourselves in the inspiration of loving art.

Looking at the world in a different way

Look at life differently; you know how to spell cool

Taking a page from Prince's book, *style is loving yourself till everyone else does too

Looking at you, you looking at me.

A loving friend will help you so the pain can mend

You might have a heavy heart; that is where you start; it will never end

Got it now; you have to look up as the sun shines on you

Deaf to the words of babbling fools, there is so much more about you

Take that talent in you and show those who love you what you can do

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

*Style by Prince from the album Emancipation 1996

Pasley Park Studio

 

CRACKERS AND SOUP

Got all the reasons to lie got no reason, to tell the truth

All this talking without any proof this is what they do

Placing all the blame with no shame, this new hate is what they maid

Crackers are boring without the soup so dry with the same old lie

Trading your blessing for a bowl of lentil soup

Now you and your brother pray in different ways

The children in their bare feet playing on the Gaza streets 

Never to know freedom under the iron dome no one is home now alone

It is hard to be so different when those who hate you say you have no soul

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Get your last breath as politicians vote for your death

Don't want to believe the lier but still, you believe the lie

Gentrification is a hipster way to say community segregation 

If every life mattered, we would be one nation

But everyone wants to be a famous hatter

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

The skies are blue for now; if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound

If those woods have not burned down

Sensitivity of the past isn't what Notridomis could even predict.

Many conversations in this life we should be having

Equal rights, social justice and don't forget Daphni

 

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Crumble up these crackers and let them soak up the flavor of another culture

So delicious so fulfilling just like those bean pies

The content of your character is lost when looking for other peoples miss-steps

Life is so random and love is an emotion, not an act 

So be kind to others when thinking of that

Crackers are boring without the soup, so dry with the same old lie.

Negative attention only bring negative oppression 

Education is commonsense, and learning from the past is the only fix 

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley

  

LOVE MASK

The experiences we had together in our minds are forever

True relationships of the mind will never lie

We got something that others take a lifetime to find

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

Intellectual thoughts I have of you that is my one and only move

Feeding the seed of love with a conversation, these words are the fruit

I don't need to be by your side when you are with me in my mind

Is there any more I need to do to prove my feeling for you

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

Intellectual feelings so reveling what more is there to prove

The expectation you put on me isn't then the ones I see

Just want my mind and body to feel free

No need for labels; I just want to sit at the table and just be me.

A love mask doesn't have to cover your heart.

Knowing you and you know me is where it all starts

I choose my loneliness, but I am never lonely with you

©Copyright Thomas J. Dooley 2021

THE WELCOME

Leave your shoes at the door.

Not because these are clean floors

There is a reason that means so much more.

Welcome to my home, welcome to my life

Respect is given at the doorsteps; that is what you will find

The honor you receive from me is a privilege, not a right

Who knows where you walked or where you been

No matter the path you take, there is no end

You walk it alone even if you are with friends 

Welcome to my home, welcome to my life

Rest from your travels; you must be emotionally tired.

Memories of the past are lost in ignorance fire.

We look for truth out of lies; we look for facts out of feelings

In this recent reality, many of us wish we were dreaming

Injustice pressed to the back of the neck this is why we are kneeling 

Welcome to my home, welcome to my life

Tell me of your journey I will tell you of mine

To find where our paths have crossed in the night.

These emotions coming and going like the wind is always blowing

Wondering what one finds its way out with words and tears

This is why confidence is a struggle for me when I can not see

Welcome to my home, welcome to my life

Look for acceptance for who I am and for who I could be

Our struggles might be different, but I still empathize with you.  

©Copyright Thomas J. Dooley 2021

BE POETIC

Where you go when lost in your mind 

In those corners, what do you find

Into this depth of forgotten life

Be poetic your thoughts a portrait painted colors not found in this life

A feeling a moment put to words are chosen from the heart

Searching for a brand new start, why is life so hard

Listen to you, the soul speaking, read those words of feelings

Mentally mystical words that come together with influential 

Our emotions speak louder thought these words

Be poetic in the way you walk; let it be the way you are

Overemphasizing your words doesn't make it art

Say something that will inspire to tickle the mind.

Find those words to understand this world

Cheating the genetics with only boy or girl

Is it the attention you try to find guided by what is inside

©Copyright 2021 Thomas J. Dooley 

 

 

THE FORGOTTEN ONE

Turned away every day, even when I got a ticket to play

Running alone in a different circle from you, but I have nothing to prove

Wanting so much social attention, what does that do for you

The forgotten one left behind because it was fun

Lost in verbal abusiveness without one witness

Victim blaming is the way to cover up the shame

  

So many problems looking for a fix, I don't want to pay for any of those tricks.

Resourceful or resentful, what does my mood have to do with you

Pushed away like we are in a crowd, don't ask where I am now

The forgotten one tries to run, hoping to look for fresher air a brighter sun.

Confused, placed in the corner of excuses. 

The crushing silence as if what I did was beyond violent 

A sign at the clubhouse door saying I am not allowed

The sounds of silence you make are so loud

No communion, no direction where do I go now

©Copyright Thomas J. Dooley 2021

THESE ASHES

What we have lost we will again find new

Sorrow is the nourishment to make love bloom

In the fires, these souls will return soon

These ashes, a new India will rise.

Forget the words of criticism; and what are called lies

Look to the words of the Gita to find all the love, peace, and purity 

Understanding is lost in the minds of those who can't see the sunrise

As Maata Ji cries, her tears purify the waters of the Ganges

We enter another time of colonization of our souls' new freedom we hold

These ashes, a new India will rise.

Look to the flag safron of courage, the white of purity, the green of fertility.  

As the Dharma Chakra walks these auspicious lands

Love is in the purifying fires of the cremations.

The soul released in the smoke forming a new nation

The ashes are the mortar to form the base for the flag can fly high  

These ashes a new India will rise

A new life, a new determination for the mind

Peace, Love, and Purity again we will find.

©Copyright Thomas J. Dooley

Notes: 

 

MAATR DIVAS (मातृ दिवस)

Conditions come with unconditional love

Woven in the colors of maatr's sari

Draped around her, she is a queen

Maatr divas, there is nothing she would not give us

The life, the love unending, not knowing where it comes from

Respected and cursed in the same breath

But the love she gives is the way she forgives

Cooking with so much love, performing massala magic

Spicy to the tongue filling and satisfying 

She is the first to give and the last to receive

Maatr divas, there is so much she gives us.

Controlling and spoiling waking you every morning

There is so much to her day you're not knowing

Return the love with your eyes and with your words

She brings truth to the words of the Gita.

She brings breath to the flute knowledge is the tune.

Feel it deep inside of you

Maatr divas, there is so much to celebrate

The traditions the honor of love given

Taking in the moment in caring arms, hold it

A season that should be every day.

©Copyright Thomas J Dooley 2021

Notes: